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Presumably, as a Japanese name, it should be written in Chinese characters or
in hiragana.


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katakana kana-usage
Why is Toyota typically written in Katakana? (トヨタ)


It's a matter of stylistic choice which is hard to explain logically. It's
kind of like asking why many Western companies adopted [lowercase
logos](http://www.duetsblog.com/2011/04/articles/branding/lower-case-branding-
visual-identity/) these days, which apparently look "grammatically wrong" to
English learners :-)

In general, katakana names often have a "international", "modern", or
"technical" impression, which is definitely good for a high-tech company like
Toyota. On the other hand, kanji names tend to look somewhat "old", "classic"
or "traditional" to the eyes of Japanese people. If you have the textbook
knowledge of when to use katakana in everyday writings, you can probably feel
why it's so.

As a matter of fact, a majority of technology companies prefer katakana or
alphabet branding over kanji branding _even when their official names are in
kanji_. Toyota and Mazda switched their official names to katakana many years
ago. Honda retains [the official company name in
kanji](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%AC%E7%94%B0%E6%8A%80%E7%A0%94%E5%B7%A5%E6%A5%AD),
but we rarely see the kanji name in news and ads. Some companies like Nissan
still use kanji along with alphabet.

To take another example, beer/whiskey breweries in Japan tend to have katakana
names/brand, (キリンビール, アサヒビール, サッポロビール, ...) while _sake_ / _shochu_ makers
tend to have kanji names (白鶴酒造, 菊正宗酒造, ...). Oh, I didn't even know that
キリンビール is still officially
[麒麟麦酒株式会社](http://www.kirin.co.jp/company/about/kirinbrewery/).

Related:

  * [ニッポン? Why Kana?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/17799/5010)


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It is because the original inventor of Toyota was a man by the name of
Kiichiro Toyoda with a D. Both the Katakana and Hiragana with the ten ten for
the Da sound make for the name to have 10 strokes. In Japanese the number 10
or 十 in Kanji has the connotation of being at a cross roads. While the number
8 or 八 in Kanji is lucky because it widens at the bottom which reminds one of
prosperity and growth. Because Toyota is not technically a correct word in
Japanese it is therefore written in Katakana.

PS I work at Toyota


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